Leslie Palma

WASHINGTON, D.C. – More than 600 people -- most of them under 25 - prayed outside a Planned Parenthood facility here today as part of the activities surrounding tomorrow's March for Life.

Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, opened the vigil with prayer and later read the names of hundreds of women who have been killed by legal abortion.

"It’s ironic that as I was reading the names, a group of pro-abort counter-protesters came by chanting that we don’t care if women die. Nothing could be further from the truth," Father Pavone said. “We want to end abortion because we don’t want any more women to die, and we don’t want any more preborn children to die.

"I offered the Planned Parenthood representatives the list of the names of women who have been killed in clinics like theirs, but they were not interested."

Also speaking at the vigil were Father Victor Salomon, director of Hispanic Outreach for Priests for Life, and Youth Outreach Director Bryan Kemper; Troy Newman of Operation Rescue; the Rev. Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition; the Rev. Terry Gensemer of CEC for Life; Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America and Kristina Garza of Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust.

This afternoon, Father Pavone will speak at a March for Life Youth Rally, to be hosted by Kemper at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill.

"Youth today are overwhelmingly pro-life because they know they are among the lucky ones to have survived the abortion holocaust," Father Pavone said. "They are committed to being the generation that ends abortion and they need our encouragement and our prayer to help them do that."

The Hyatt is located at 400 New Jersey Ave., NW.

Priests for Life is the nation's largest Catholic pro-life organization dedicated to ending abortion and euthanasia. For more information, visit www.priestsforlife.org.